Ex-Sidley Associate Pens Tell-All Memoir of China Sexcapades
A former associate at the Beijing office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood has written a steamy memoir about his sexcapades, wild parties and pot-smoking in a new book called China High.
Taking the pen name ZZ, the author writes of Beijing’s “commerce, conflict and concupiscence,” Bloomberg reports. He worked at Sidley’s Beijing office beginning in 2001, but was fired for running a food delivery business, according to the Far Eastern Review.
“Written before the global credit meltdown, China High lifts a curtain on a side of Beijing seldom seen by tourists,” Bloomberg says. “ZZ captures the nocturnal buzz of a city where rave parties in derelict factories are a staple and orgies have become a rite of passage. Then there’s the pot, which locals call the Big Numb.”
ZZ, who earned $250,000 a year by the age of 24, discloses he took an 18-year-old girlfriend for an abortion and spent two weeks in jail for smoking marijuana in public.
“Beneath the froth lies a serious message: The world’s largest developing economy is seething in social tension, displaced people and hypocrisy,” the Bloomberg review says. “It’s a land of official sexual equality run by men who often keep under-30 mistresses, aka their ‘little honeys,’ on two-year contracts. A country given to bouts of xenophobia among people who fawn on foreigners.”
Above the Law notes the reviews and the detailed bio of ZZ, a Chinese national who was a graduate of Brandeis University and Boston College Law School. “That bio is detailed enough that we don’t imagine ZZ is going to stay anonymous for long,” Above the Law writes.
By way of contrast, an Associated Press story offers a different look at law practice in China. In a crackdown on activists, the country has threatened to disbar up to 20 lawyers who took on human rights cases.
